Student filmmaker's work chosen for NYC festival

Wednesday

Sep 27, 2017 at 11:50 AMSep 27, 2017 at 11:50 AM

TONY SIMMONS News Herald Writer @PCNHTonyS

PANAMA CITY — Graceleigh Wright has her sights set on the Big Apple.

A Mosley High School senior, 17-year-old Wright will travel to New York City this month as a guest of the All American High School Film Festival, which accepted her short film, "The Hunting," into this year's competition. Wright filmed "The Hunting," a comedy about teenage ghost investigators, at the Panama City Center for the Arts.

"I'm still surprised," Wright said of being picked for the festival. "During the filming process, I didn't think we'd even get it done."

She got into filmmaking in middle school, when she followed her brother to a weeklong filmmaking summer camp in the Ozarks.

"After that, I decided to get some people together for a 48-hour film project," she said. "It was picked for the Memphis Film Fest and won 'Best Use of Props.' ... It was an adrenaline rush. That's when I really figured out I like this."

Her father helped her find the right equipment to make higher quality productions. They spent weeks researching cameras and other gear, looking for a professional result. She now shoots with a 3200 DSLR Nikon and uses Final Cut Pro for editing. She's found filmmaking to be an all-consuming process, as she writes, directs, shoots, edits and often also acts in her short films. The hardest part of any project, though, was finding people to appear on screen.

"It's always hard. The biggest challenge is getting everybody there," she said. "I could never get a project completed."

One of her earliest completed projects focused on her brother, who suffers from neurological disorders as a result of his birth mother's use of drugs while she was pregnant. Wright filmed him at the hospital where he was being treated, and the result is now part of the West Virginia Center for Children's Justice website (HandleWithCareWV.org).

"They let us film for two hours," Wright said of the experience shooting in the hospital. "They put us in a room with security guards, and he was not in the right mindset. I edited two hours of footage into 10 minutes of film, an overview of his issues."

The Wrights moved to Bay County a year ago from Little Rock, Ark. Graceleigh's mom, Susan, said the move had been a "huge blessing" for her daughter.

"It's a great experience, to watch kids be creative and collaborative," Susan Wright said. "It's a team approach. ... The kids delivered."

Wright appreciated the opportunity to use the Center for the Arts to shoot the film, adding, "Otherwise, we wouldn't be going to New York. It took us forever to find a location and I was about to give up on this film."

After choosing the comedy genre at random, Wright came up with the concept of shooting a parody of the paranormal investigation shows she'd seen on cable TV. Coming up with a storyline is Wright's favorite part of the process.

"I get really excited when we have an idea," she said. "I already envision it in my head. It's fun to play that out and know it's going to come alive. But filming day is always stressful."

Dozens of variables have to be accounted for to complete a short film, from wrangling actors and gathering props and costumes, to shooting on location during limited hours. Audio is often her biggest hurdle, she said, but when Wright went to edit the footage, she discovered some missing pieces in her puzzle.

"I came up with the idea of using narration to cover the missing pieces," she said. "I would have added some special effects, but school started and I ran out of time. ... I did it, and it could have been better, but you gotta do what you gotta do."

In this case, what Wright had to do was meet a deadline to submit the film to festivals and contests.

"Honestly, I don't think it will win an award, but it is cool to say I got into the official selection for a New York film festival," she said.

Wright hopes to go to a film school after graduating from high school in 2018, but she also is interested in studying the music industry.

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